A couple of days ago I wrote that I had become inured to synanogue bombings. I lied. Even though I am not religious, they still make me sick. People who do that are trying to kill my family and friends for no reason other than their religion or ethnicity. And now, this sickness is not far away, just up the five freeway in that haven of tolerance San Francisco. In case you haven’t heard, some demented racists have been painting swastikas all over the campaign posters of man named Heller running for office up there. Here’s a video report.
I can’t say I’m surprised. The Bay Area, which we associate with so many freedoms, has been overwhelmed by a cultural relativist orthodoxy, which allows Berkeley professors to teach “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” as if it were fact. Such things had consequence in the past and they still do. And they have been going on for a while. This particular article by Berkeley student Daniel Frankenstein caused something of a stir a year or so ago. Let’s hope the latest desecration in the Board of Supervisor campaign will be a wakeup call. It’s certainly needed.
UPDATE: Meanwhile in New Zealand, police have revised upwards their estimates of recent Jewish grave desecrations at a Wellington cemeter. What is it about these “progressive” bastions? (hat tip: Boker Tov, Boulder!)
More HERE from beautiful New Zealand with photos.
Roger:
I hope you are right but I fear you are wrong.The Zionism equals racism mentality has completely infested the Bay Area not only in the Berkeley campus but also in the political institutions. Thirty years ago this action would have inspired candle light vigils and proactive political responses. Now this will last one or two news cycles and then it will fade. Don’t be suprised if Mr. Heller isn’t accused of doing this himself to generate publicity for his campaign.
I hate to sound fatalistic but I fear that it will take the death of a Jew to shake this area up. The area once had the quaint monilker Bahgdad by the Bay for non religous reasons. The nickname may still be accurate but for more sinister reasons today.
Yes, the enlightened progressives seem to feel empathy for the Jewish people only when the Jews are being suppressed or murdered. Something like the European elites extending brother feelings toward Americans on September 11 ñ and turning their noses at us when we fight back.
Roger, it is impossible to be inured to this kind of stuff. It is sick and evil. If I hate anything at all it is all this mindless intolerance and hate.
Kevin, San Francisco is still Baghdad by the Bay. What I find the most mind-boggling is that our Jewish liberal friends tend to side with the Palestinians. Is this self-abnegation worth it, just to fit in? And where and when will it end? Will it really take a hate-murder to wake people up? One? More than one?
I am afraid that the fair city is rotten to the core.
This is a symptom of the general decay of absolute values and the rise of relativism and multiculturalism. Those together allow all manner of evils.
The humanities world has gone bezerk, and of course the worse is found at Bezerkely. But never fear, Berkely is a trend setting. AntiSemitism will be at your neighborhood university next, if it isn’t there already (probably is). Multiculturalism encourages labeling by ethnicity, and it encourages separateness and ultimately competition for benefits and privileges.
When Universities started setting up racially separate facilities – especially dorms, they lit the match. The multicultural faculty fanned the flame.
I suspect a lot of other groups will get nasty treatment too – say, Chinese.
After 9-11 most local establishments in SF carried signs announcing that they are ìhate-freeî zones. Buses had placards with photos of South Asian and ME people and caption: We are part of the community, too. One would have thought that hate crimes against Middle Eastern looking people were rampant in the area. Of course, nothing like that happened.
One wonders wheather acts of real anti-Semitism will prompt similar response. I am not holding my breath.
Roger, your post scared me a great deal. At first I thought you were about to relate that there had been a synogogue bombing in San Francisco. I was relieved to find that it was just the defacement of some posters. Although this is clearly not good either.
Are matters like what’s going on at Berkeley re: anti-Semitism being discussed in the Jewish community? In synogogues around the country? Are large numbers of Jews aware that a chunk of the Left has turned on them?
To tie this with the earlier thread about faith vs. reason, well, there’s a prime example of what can happen when an irreligious void is filled.
ìAre large numbers of Jews aware that a chunk of the Left has turned on them?î
Many American Jews believe that the enemy is always to the right, the left might occasionally misbehave—but itís those conservatives like Pat Buchanan who are the real threat. I strongly suspect that at least one third of John Kerry’s Supporters tacitly, if not even explicitly, embrace anti-Semitic views. Moreover, a number of Jews even do so! My question is this: why arenít there more studies to obtain hard data on the issue? Is the hesitation due to the genuine possibility that the results could persuade large numbers of American Jews to switch to the Republican Party?
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among them are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
What do these words have to do with the future of the Jews in America? Everything.
This nation has been so miraculous for Jews and for many other peoples because it was and is the only universal nation; the only nation founded on the principle that ALL men are CREATED equal.
The atavism of multiculturalism guarantees that the Jews will become the tribe that all the other tribes are given lief to hate.
This is already happening. As its incidence increases don’t look for a defense of universalism and the Jews to come from the left. The defense of America’s founding principle will only come from classical liberalism, which has its home, if anywhere, in the Republican party. And if that party does not defend our founding principle in the terrible times that are coming….then America will begin to die.
David Thomson,
Many American Jews believe that the enemy is always to the right, the left might occasionally misbehave
I think it would informative and perhaps even shocking if someone were to create a map that correlated voting pattens with the per captia rate of anti-semitic attacks.
I suspect that such a map would reveal that the rate of anti-semitic attacks is perfectly correlated with left-wing and Democratic voting tendencies.
Anybody up to the challenge?
Roger:
I have been struggling with a post on this topic for far too long.
I can only come up with a paraphrase from the Brothers K. “Without God, all things are permissible.” That includes killing Jews and having Jews indifferent to their own destruction.
Progressivism [socialism] is an atheist-based system that places man in the center of things. The Progressive is god-like in his capability to order the world. Therefore, if the progressive deems that Jews can be dispensed with then there is no moral prohibition against it. In a sense the Progressive is right when it comes to Israel and Jewish identity. If God does not exist then Judaism doesn’t either. He now becomes free to eliminate it from society. So why has the larger Jewish community become indifferent to the transformation of International Socialism to National Socialism? I think the answer lies in the abandonment of God. When you couple this with the Eastern European Jewish heritage of appeasement of the oppressor you get Jews trying to be the most socialist of all socialists. They are saying, “look we are a best kind of socialists that can be made. We belong.” To this the Progressive says [to quote Arnold in Commando] “I promise to kill you last.”
Roger ó Cultural relativism is the lazy man’s way of avoiding the need to make moral judgments about the world around himself and his place in it.
The irony is that it is generally invoked by people who react with blindly hostile intolerance to anyone who disagrees with their herd thing. Look at the “scandal” over Glenn Reynolds’ T-shirt over at instapundit.com (scroll down for the words “male model” for some links.
The tragedy is that the cultural relativist finds himself with no ground to stand on when faced with true atrocity; having equivocated at petty bigotry, he cannot draw the line at condemning personal violence… or toppled skyscrapers. His reflexive mantra of “yes, this is terrible, BUT…” emasculates him as a moral agent.
I wonder if a lot of the anger of the 70′s reactionaries comes from a place where they unconsciously realize they’ve talked themselves into a corner where they must stand with monsters…
Roger, The KKK was practically erased by lawsuits. Spray painting someone’s sign is similar to burning a cross on someone’s lawn, no ?
There are jew lawyers, so why not bring suit ?
Those who preach a falsehood which brings hateful defacing of private property can surely be liable.
It was a couple of years before 9/11 that I first noticed anti-Semitism showing up in the SF Chronicle in their letters to the editor. By 9/11 it had infected the paper’s paid columnists. Since 9/11 it’s been on the front page in their so-called “news” stories nearly everyday. I am not surprised at all by the defacement of the campaign posters, as it was only a matter of time. What is surprising to me is how fast it’s all happening. From a few letters attacking Israel’s “zionism” to swasticas in just a matter of three or four years.
And evangelical Christianity is, of course, utterly and openly reviled, and with utter impunity. People use the words “Christian” and “Republican” and “Zionist” in exactly the same way as racists use the N word, only in the case of the former it is perfectly acceptable, even approved, social behavior.
If John Kerry wins this election, I fear for Israel.
HA:
Great idea about the map, but it’s a butt-kicker to get the data in mappable form. Selfish Roger hasn’t provided oceans of disk space for us to post graphics, so let me boil down the pictures to a few numbers.
Comparing the rate of anti-semitic incidents (incidents/100,000 population) to the odds of a state voting for Bush (for Bush/for Gore), we get a correlation of -0.524, which is statistically significant, but weak. There is somewhat more anti-semitism in the Gore (Blue) states, but that only explains about 27% of the variation. If I were trying to forecast anti-semitic incidents, I’d look elsewhere.
An interesting outlier is Michigan, a Blue state with a large Muslim population; it had a very low rate of incidents in 2003 (0.059 vs 0.527 nationally). Another is the District of Columbia, which does have a truly shocking rate of 5.325, about 10 times the national rate.
So–nothing shocking (except D.C.), but you’ve given me a great project for my undergraduate statistics classes!
vxjames -
It might even be possible to find a gentile lawyer who would take the case.
If I were looking for correlations (recognizing that correlation may or may not be tied to causality), I would look at the proximity of “liberal” universities.
Then I’d add in certain areas where “right-wing” anti-Semites hang out – such as part of Idaho an Manhattan (and historically, here in Arizona).
I think it is a trimodal phenomenon. The right wing nuts (and I hate that term, because I am right wing and these are not like me) will occasionally wander out and do something nasty. Fortunately, a lot of them are survivalists and zero-government types also, and hence hide out in their compounds and bother nobody but locals.
On top of this, add certain youth splinter groups such as skinheads. This stuff moves fast enough I’m probably out of date, but there is an alienated-youth market for anti-semitic ideas and behavior. These are the same folks who would go in for gay bashing. Basically, they are thugs enabled by pop culture.
The problem with the phenomenon turning up on the left is that it gains intellectual credibility from the insane world of political correctness and multiculturalism. So not only is it fun to attack Jews(for the sadists) but also ideologically correct.
Where the danger exists, I don’t know. The alienated youth may beat someone up or commit minor vandalism. A survivalist type may (rarely) come out of his hole and bring all his guns with him, and actually kill some Jews. Those inspired by the leftists are going to be most dangerous to Jewish students and to US Israeli policy, as they gain influence.
Is it my imagination, or has the country gotten a lot more ugly since, say, the 1980s?
I wish I had something to add to this conversation. The fact that hatred for Jews has not disappeared despite its long and loathesome history does not surprise me. I was surprised by it 25 years ago when I began seeing for myself that anti-semitism was alive and well in Europe, but after 25 years later I can’t claim surprise any longer.
People look for some “other” to blame their problems on and Jews are easily the all time favorite (we Americans are catching up, though, in a global sense). What seems so demented (I just can’t think of a better word) to me is that hatred for, or at the very least assigning as the scapegoat of choice, Jews seems to be gaining “acceptance” and, perhaps, the most dangerous acceptance of all is its acceptance among those who our society seems to consider the intellectual avant-guard. The supposedly forward-thinking are buying in to it.
Whether red-state vs. blue-state matters seems unlikely – at least at this stage of development. I don’t believe “red-staters” are any more or less prone to anti-semitism. The red-state variants, however, are more likely to be either deliberately or incidentally isolated. They are seperatists either by choice or reality. They may hate Jews but they crawl off into their compounds or live in places where there aren’t many Jews to attack. The blue-state anti-semites, on the other hand, are more dangerous for two reasons: they are the elites and if they buyin to anti-Semitism it is that much easier for it to spread to the general population and, perhaps most important should the thing reach flash-point or critical mass, they live where the Jews are (target rich environment).
We the People need to keep a wary eye on this because we will be getting substantial Jewish emigres from Europe over the next few decades and allowing anti-semitism to creep up on us in the meantime is not in our best interests.
Knucklehead, you’ve touched on something that’s been worrying me. How easy is it for European Jews to get into the US? I’ve been worried about the flow into Israel because, while this is good for Israel, the nexis of nuclear weapons and such a small land area freaks me out.
Roger;
I am disapointed that this thread didn’t take off. We are going to have to deal with the Nazification of the left and the Democratic Party for years to come regardless of who wins the election. I fear that a Kerry defeat will accelerate the transformation of the Democratic Party into a unabashedly anti-Semetic Party.
Not long ago I had a conversation with a young woman who just hates Bush, can’t stand him. She thinks Michael Moore is the berries and of course, she will vote for Kerry. We were talking aobut medical research and I happened to mention that the Israelis had done a lot of work in the area of spinal cord damage research. She recoiled, grimaced and shuddered. At the mere mention of the word Israeli. She is black, well educated and considers herself very progressive. In fact she thought we should get rid of those nasty bombs and use the money to find a cure for cancer and Bush is Hitler because he sent her brother to Iraq.
It is like a package deal. Remain a student until you are at least 30, be liberal, hate jews, hate Bush and you are in the club. What is next, wearing your underwear on the outside of your clothes, a secret handshake, what?
“What is it about these progressive bastions?”
Weimar Berlin was a progressive bastion before it wasn’t a progressive bastion.
Katherine,
What’s next? A life time job in the MSM,public sector,academia,the arts,law or politics.It’s a career move.
Apologies Terrye.
Peter:
You do not need to apologize to me. You are a perfect gentleman at all times. So British.
Thank you gracious lady,but it behoves a man to get a lady’s name right.
Jerry:
The reason that this thread didn’t take off is because of the swift boat thread. But it is also because this type of shocking racism has become so commonplace that it is becoming almost boring to the general population. The Left’s embrace of the Zionism equals Racism slander has made the group that used to be the staunchest defenders of Israel and the Jewish race their most viscous attackers. The democratic party would rather ignore these early warning signs to appease the left wing of their party.Once again the Jews of the world have very few friends and even some of the people who claim to be their friends will ignore or appease their tormentors for political gain.Of course the Jews in America have more issues that they are concerned about and like all groups they are not of one mind on the question of Israel. But to those Jews who do care about Israel they should know that the Democratic Party, with exceptions of course, have swung radically to the mindset that Israel is no longer the Beacon of Democracy in the middle east but is the actual source of the instability in that region. It is a open question in the party as to whether or not the existence of a Jewish Democratic State of Israel is a good idea or not. There is beginning to be a rumbling among the intellectual leadership of the Dems that Israel should be folded into a greater Palestinian State with the Jews of this state slipping back to a minority party in this proposed state. The incident in Bay area and the ho-hum reaction to it is a sympton of this growing worldview.
I wish that more Jews would recognize that the Democratic party is anti-Zionist. The best friends of Israel is on the right, both the religious right and the plain old right. Conservatives are just not interested in the kinds of mental gymnastics that the left goes through in their education, and hence tend to have a less nuanced, more realistic sense of fairness.
The shocking thing is that what we so casually take for granted concerning the growing anti-Semitism of the Democrat Party is a total mystery to most people. The liberal media has hidden this from the public. Even more shocking is that it is the ultra-liberal Jews who are primarily responsible for this sad state of affairs! I’m convinced that John Kerry will really stick it to Israel if he is elected. Unfortunately, the awful jobs report just dramatically increased the odds in his favor. President Bush is in deep trouble.
slimedog,
Great idea about the map, but it’s a butt-kicker to get the data in mappable form.
Thanks for the info! Is the difficulty getting the data or mapping the data? If you have sufficient data, there are a number of ways to map it. There are even cheap add-ons to Microsoft Excel to map data. Here is one example:
http://www.softill.com/
I think it would be interesting to see the data plotted by zip code. This should be granular enough to see if their are clusters around extreme left-wing regions like Berkeley where “anti-zionism” has become a religion. It would also be interesting to see how the data changes over time. Even if the correlation is weak today, I expect it will grow stronger over time.
Knucklehead raises good points about the competing strains of left-wing and right-wing anti-semitism. But I would expect a positive correrlation between left-wing voting patterns and anti-semitic attacks because the blue states have a lethal proximity between a receptive audience to anti-semitism – palatably disguised “anti-zionism” – and available targets for those prepared to use “all necessary means” to achieve their final solution.
ìWeimar Berlin was a progressive bastion before it wasn’t a progressive bastion.î
This is one of the reason so many Jews let their guard down. Germany was at that time perhaps the least anti-Semitic European country. Many secular Jews considered themselves fully assimilated. Thatís why it is ironic when observing the occasional debates over who is really a Jew. Hitler rarely gave a damn about the distinctions. The possibility that one never attended a synagogue was utterly meaningless in his way of looking at the world.
The United States is not anywhere close to becoming another Nazi Germany. Nonetheless, American Jews are far more vulnerable today than they were just a few years ago. Rep. Anthony Weiner is one of the reasons why this has occurred:
ìFor example, it didnít seem obvious to him (Rep. Weiner) that Islamists, hating America and hating Jews and Christians, might not share their authentic views with him. Amazingly, he had not heard that some Muslims in Brooklyn along Atlantic Avenue and some others in Queens had celebrated in the streets when the World Trade Center was destroyed by the genocide bombers. Nor did he know they were filmed in the act by local TV crews ñ whose tapes were not replayed often and then, suspiciously enough, disappeared completely from the airwaves as the news reports got worse and worse. Even when I told him about it he denied it. Facts can be such horrid things.î
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=14338
HA:
But I would expect a positive correrlation between left-wing voting patterns and anti-semitic attacks because the blue states have a lethal proximity between a receptive audience to anti-semitism – palatably disguised “anti-zionism” – and available targets for those prepared to use “all necessary means” to achieve their final solution.
To try to expand on what I suspect re: red-state vs. blue-state anti-semitism…
I may get, and may deserve, some trashing for this, but here’s how it seems to me. I don’t doubt for one moment that the red-states have their share of bigots of various flavors. Nor do the blue-states. Bigots are bigots and not every red-state bigot is “politically” red-state. Not every blue-state bigot is politically blue-state.
Red-staters, regardless of political beliefs or bigotries held, however, seem to me to be somewhat less passive. A bigot in a red-state sort of area would, I suspect but don’t actually know, be more likely to act in some way upon bigotry. Go out and threaten violence or inflict violence. In the case of anti-semite bigots, however, they have less access to Jews upon which to actively vent their bigotry.
Blue state bigots, particularly the anti-semite variety, are more “upscale”. They tend to be the same people who would say things like “war never solved anything”. They are more passive, at least physically, when it comes to expressing their bigotries. Call it non-violent if that fits better. So while these elitist, upscale anti-semites have more access to Jews upon which to vent their bigotry they are less inclined to vent bigotry through violence or other non-passive, non-cocktail party, no-campus-rally sorts of activities.
But these upscale, elitist types of bigots do have some influence on what becomes acceptable (or not) to the general population. We could point to many examples but I doubt that’s necessary. If the upscale, elitist anti-semites influence wide-spread public opinion toward open anti-semitism or reach the point of stirring up anti-semitism to get to violence by proxy, well, things could get much uglier much faster.
I think we’re too early in the open anti-semitism from elites phenomenon to see it reflected statistically in some plot of crimes red-state vs. blue-state. And by the time it would show up any such plot we’ll have a real problem on our hands.
Unfortunately the elites of today have become the narrow-minded, prone to bigotry elites they screamed against all those years ago. Once upon a time they fought against a calcified and narrow minded establishment. Now they are the calcified and narrow minded establishment. Back then they recognized the establishment as part of the problems that needed solving. Now they they are the establishment they fail to see that they are part of the problems that need solving.
Knucklehead,
Don’t know if your paying attention to this thread any more, but here’s an op-ed that strikes at the heart of your question about the willingness of the left to act on its anti-semitism:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2001999939_alexander09.html
It is chilling to realize that someone like Al Sharpton who has incited multiple anti-semitic homicides was allowed to participate in the Democratic debates, and was invited to speak at the Democratic convention.